This is a different Kevin Donnelly to ours - a veteran musicologist who admirably fought back his desire to turn his conference paper into a lecture on why the compositions of Keff McCulloch have no redeeming features.

Thanks! I'd like to do more 'aca-fandom' stuff; I often think that if I had been setting off on a doctorate now I might have done something media-related and moved into that field, but at the time I was suspicious of the sociological language which peppered many of the books. I sometimes look at Henry Jenkins's blog, and remember remarking on him many years ago, when walking through part of MIT, as one of my favourite academics; but his interests in contemporary culture are much, much wider than mine.

The book which I would like to write lies between James Chapman's Inside the Tardis and the About Time series of Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood. I have another idea which travels over less well-trodden ground, however... I just need to make the time to write up the proposal and get it into circulation!

Thanks! I know I've plugged the book before, a few months ago; its mention here reflects my impatience for my copies to be delivered. The cover isn't the one I chose - the contributors had a vote and I was in the minority.

The good thing about MUP is that they put these things out in paperback, not always the case (and I think one of their series of books about television now comes out in hardbacks only, aimed at libraries).

I'm not getting any royalties, so I'm happy for people to buy the paperback! I'm just glad that there is a paperback, and hope that MUP pursue the crossover market between the academic audience and fandom with zeal.

I think that there was a time, in the early 1990s, when City of Death topped polls, but The Caves of Androzani reigned supreme for much longer. Neither story is currently the highest-placed 'old series' entry over at Doctor Who Dynamic Rankings, though at time of writing they are placed at 7 and 5 respectively.

Thanks! I'd value your opinion on my chapter and on the other essays in the book. There are a substantial number which aren't based on papers from the 2004 Manchester conference - for example, neither Daniel O'Mahony nor Tat Wood were at the event.

Coincidentally, today I was asked to contribute to a book of conference papers. The weird part is that I didn't speak properly at the conference in question; I just chaired a session and gave a 10 minute linking talk. So I'll actually have to write something new. But, yay, getting published = very exciting!

Other chronicles

The Quest of the Parrot Knight

Journal of a knight in time

The memoirs of Sir Guinglain Le Parrot, sometime of the court of King Arthur, transported by means unknown to Brooks's Club in the 1780s, and facing a challenge to a drinking contest from Charles James Fox. To the Buff and Blue, and the Good Old Cause of the Whigs!